Lee Hyunmin, Wright Kevin B, O'Connor Michaela, Wombacher Kevin
a Department of Communication , Saint Louis University.
Health Commun. 2014;29(7):637-45. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2013.794412. Epub 2013 Oct 18.
This study explores the benefits and risks featured in medical tourism broker websites, as well as the types of persuasive appeals that these websites use to attract potential customers, from a framing theory perspective. In addition, it examines relationships among types of appeals and specific types of health-related services offered by medical facilities abroad and the role of new media modalities within medical tourism broker sites. A content analysis of 91 medical tourism broker websites was conducted. The results indicate that the websites highly emphasized benefits while downplaying the risks. Specifically, despite offering consumers complicated and risky medical procedures, the websites failed to report any procedural, postoperative, or legal concerns associated with them. Moreover, the results indicated that the websites relied on heavy use of new media features to enhance the appeal of the medical services that were offered. The implications of these findings, future directions for research, and limitations of the study are discussed.
本研究从框架理论的角度探讨了医疗旅游中介网站所呈现的益处和风险，以及这些网站用以吸引潜在客户的说服性诉求类型。此外，它还考察了诉求类型与国外医疗机构提供的特定健康相关服务类型之间的关系，以及新媒体模式在医疗旅游中介网站中的作用。对91个医疗旅游中介网站进行了内容分析。结果表明，这些网站高度强调益处而淡化风险。具体而言，尽管向消费者提供复杂且有风险的医疗程序，但网站并未报告与之相关的任何程序、术后或法律问题。此外，结果表明，这些网站大量使用新媒体功能来增强所提供医疗服务的吸引力。文中讨论了这些发现的意义、未来的研究方向以及本研究的局限性。
